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Amid crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church offered an apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, declared this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could marry in church starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with a mixed reaction. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, though it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in the view that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”